Blood of Innocents (Book Two of the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence) (40 page)

“I need you to work on something for me in return, a few odds and ends, which I don’t have the time or expertise to craft myself.”

He waited while she squinted at him, obviously deciding whether or not to take up his offer.

“Here,” he said, holding out the sack. “Look them over. I know from another clockmaker they’ll suit your needs. Meanwhile, I can sketch what I want in return. If I can use your counter?”

Waving him permission, the woman opened the sack and deposited the contents on the counter, while Caldan drew some paper, pen, and ink from his pocket and began scribing what he wanted.

“These are…” she said, “quite the little collection. And worth a good deal of ducats. I’m not sure I can afford them.”

Caldan knew the exorbitant markup the Sorcerers’ Guild charged clockmakers and other industries for their
crafting
s. Being the only providers of essential components for other guilds meant they could charge whatever they liked and get away with it.

“As I said, I don’t want ducats; I need your expertise.”

Caldan watched as the woman nervously fingered the
crafting
s then nodded. He felt slightly ashamed he was taking advantage of her unfortunate situation, but if she hadn’t been desperate, he’d still have tried to enlist her help, and at least now she’d be better off for the exchange.

“I… don’t have a lot of materials to spare,” she admitted. “But tell me what you need.”

Caldan spent the next few minutes explaining his ideas and going over what he required: pieces for another automaton similar to his previous experiment, along with a few other smaller objects. When he was satisfied the clockmaker understood what he needed, he continued sketching his designs while she watched, eliciting the occasional comment from her when she thought his schematics needed adjustment.

Behind him, the chime jingled as another customer entered. He turned to see the tall figure of a cloaked and hooded woman closing the door. He went back to sketching, while the clockmaker smiled and bent to retrieve a wooden box. She grunted with effort as she lifted it, and took small steps around the counter.

“Here you are,” she said. “Everything you asked for.”

The clink of coins marked the exchange as the woman left the shop without a word. There was another chime as the door closed behind her.

Caldan froze, pen in hand, a splotch of ink growing larger as it leached into the paper. He didn’t remember a bell tinkling when he entered. Slowly, he laid down his pen and turned to examine the door. He was right. But… surely not…

The clockmaker walked back behind the counter, giving him a curious look.

“Who was just in here?” he demanded.

“What? Another patron. She placed a custom order.”

“What did she look like? Was she tall? With long dark hair?”

“Well, yes. But why would—?”

“Did she have any bells on her, small ones made from metal? In her hair?”

“Why, she did. One or two. I thought it odd but…”

She broke off as Caldan left his schematics and lunged for the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled.

It didn’t budge. Bells had recognized him and somehow crafted the door shut.

Heart pounding, he ran for the rear exit. “Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

“Hey, you can’t go in there!”

Leaving the startled woman in his wake, he forgot about the
crafting
and his designs; all that mattered was finding Bells. The wooden container was heavy, so she couldn’t be far ahead.
Crafting
the door locked had been a hasty attempt to delay him after the bell had tinkled and she realized it could have alerted him.

Through the back door was a weed-strewn yard with a chicken coop. Stone walls surrounded him, and an iron gate opened onto a back lane, but it was barred and secured with a heavy padlock.

Cursing, he used the crossbars of the gate as a makeshift ladder and scrambled to the top, throwing himself over and landing awkwardly. His sword tangled his legs, and he almost fell. Gripping the hilt firmly to keep the blade under control, he understood why some swordsmen preferred a scabbard across the back for their shorter blades.

Caldan dashed down the narrow lane and took the first turn he could toward the main road, emerging among a crowd of people in the street.

Frantically, he peered over their heads, searching for signs of Bells. Why did hooded cloaks have to be in fashion? There were too many, none of which were hurrying away. She had to be one of them, didn’t she? Or maybe she had crossed the street and disappeared down an alley?

“By the ancestors,” he muttered. He’d lost her. The delay caused by the door had been enough for Bells to slip away. There was no chance he’d find her now, unless he was lucky. And if he went haring off down an alley, she might have left another surprise for him, like the one between the trees that Morkel had spotted before it killed one of them.

Bells had been so close; she’d been right behind him. She could have stuck him in the back with a knife and he wouldn’t have known until it was too late. Why didn’t she?

He had to tell Joachim and the Protectors. But first he needed to conclude his business with the clockmaker. Resisting the urge to continue searching for Bells, he headed back to the shop.

From the outside, there was no obvious
crafting
on the lock, except… there. A tiny round metal circle near the base of the door. Caldan accessed his well and probed the object. It was similar to the paper
crafting
s he’d used to lock his door when he first arrived in Anasoma. Not sensing anything dangerous, he took out his knife and prized it loose.

A round
crafting
with a metal spike, ideal for attaching to wood or anything you could push it into. A crafted metal tack. Careful not to prick himself, he pushed the door, and it opened smoothly. Inside, the clockmaker stood there glaring at him, arms folded across her chest.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “The woman was someone I’m looking for.”

“Did you catch up with her? And what was wrong with my door?”

“Er… it was stuck a little. You shouldn’t have a problem with it from now on.” At the woman’s frown, he continued. “What did she have you make? Anything like my designs?”

“No. Mostly she needed materials.”

“Metals?”

The clockmaker nodded.

“What types? Gold? Silver?”

“No, mostly copper and some rare earths. She asked me to acquire them for her; said she didn’t have the time or the patience to do it herself. Paid well, too.”

Copper? wondered Caldan. He chewed a thumbnail. It didn’t make sense. Why use a metal that couldn’t withstand the forces flowing through it for long? Copper was what most apprentices practiced with. It was soft and easy to work with, and to melt down and reuse.

Shaking his head, Caldan returned to the counter, under the now watchful gaze of the clockmaker. She probably didn’t know what to make of his behavior.

Taking a deep breath, Caldan tapped his schematics. “Can you make these?”

She nodded. “I looked them over after you ran out. I knew you’d be back; no one would leave these
crafting
s here without wanting something in return. I can make them, but it’ll take a few days, possibly a week.”

There was no helping it, so Caldan nodded in return. “And are the
crafting
s enough to cover payment?”

“More than enough, if I’m truthful.” She placed a couple on the counter, small squares of metal covered in etched runes. “Here, take these.”

With a smile, Caldan shook his head and pushed them back toward her. “Keep them. They’re for your silence about what happened. The woman is very dangerous, and the Protectors are looking for her.”

“I had no idea. She was so nice, though.”

“I guess she could be, if she wanted.”

He’d never seen that side of Bells. It was hard to think of her as a normal person.

“I’ll come back in a few days. If you haven’t finished, I’ll check what you’ve done in case we need to make changes. Now, I need to get back to the Protectors and report what’s happened. Some of them may come and question you. They probably will. I’d appreciate it if you let on as little as you could about why I was here.”

“I can be discreet.”

Caldan nodded and bade her farewell, leaving the shop.

What was Bells up to? Caldan was sure she’d be lying low, but it looked like she was in the process of
crafting
something. Now she had materials, she needed somewhere to work unnoticed, and there weren’t many places suitable for working with metals. Any blacksmith’s would do in a pinch, but for finer work, jewelers and silversmiths had the necessary equipment.

With racing thoughts, he hurried back to Joachim.

•

Caldan listened as Joachim began another tirade, his ears still ringing from the warlock’s scathing words. Apparently, he’d expected Caldan to sit around doing nothing while he slept, and he wasn’t pleased his new charge had wandered off. The fact that Caldan had inadvertently stumbled into Bells and found out she was planning something didn’t mitigate his ‘carelessness’.

Master Annelie rushed into the room, flanked by two heavily armed Protectors. Joachim raised his eyebrows at her bodyguards but said nothing.

“Caldan here just had an encounter with our rogue sorcerer,” Joachim said without ado. “It seems she’s determined to make a nuisance of herself and has been acquiring
crafting
materials from a clockmaker.”

Annelie’s eyes narrowed, and she turned to Caldan. “What were you doing at a clockmaker’s?” She held up a hand. “No, tell me later. What happened with Bells?”

Caldan ran through the encounter, emphasizing the fact he hadn’t realized it was Bells until after she’d left and barred the door with her
crafting
.

“She’s up to something,” he finished.

“Well that much is obvious,” said Annelie. “But what? She’s in a foreign city, on the run, and presumably hiding from our searchers, though that doesn’t seem to have stopped her wandering around in daylight. And she has to know the emperor’s forces are on their way; everyone in the streets knows it by now. What has she to gain by staying?”

“An excellent question,” said Joachim. “And one we probably won’t be able to answer until we capture her. We can, however, make a few assumptions.”

Annelie frowned. “Which are?”

“For a start, that she’s up to no good. Whatever she’s planning will be to her benefit. She’s hardly going to be hiding in a hostile city without good reason, when she could easily be on her way to Anasoma to join the Indryallans. And it’s highly unlikely she’s doing so for personal reasons, which only leaves the Quivers here in the city and the emperor’s forces on the way. If either one suffered a major setback, it would advantage the Indryallans.”

“But we’re on guard now against coercive sorcery,” exclaimed Annelie. “We have masters on the lookout, and since we’re keeping our sorcery to a minimum, it’s unlikely we’ll miss any activity. The Quivers have been alerted and have doubled their guards; I can’t see how she’d be able to do anything to disrupt them, especially since she’s alone.”

“Then that leaves the emperor’s forces,” said Caldan.

Both Joachim and Annelie regarded him with puzzlement.

“After Bells escaped,” he quickly continued, “I wondered if she hadn’t been biding her time, as we were taking her in the direction she wanted to go anyway. It was only a feeling, but… if you have a plan that could severely hamper the opposition forces, then wouldn’t you wait until you could cause the most disruption?”

Joachim grunted. “And by disrupt, I take it you’re thinking of Anasoma, where they killed the sorcerers and the Protectors, and threw the Quivers into chaos so they weren’t able to muster an effective defense?”

Throat tight at the memory, Caldan nodded. “We might not think she can do anything if we’re on our guard, but Bells thinks she can. And who knows more of what she’s capable of than she does?”

“Good point,” muttered Joachim.

Annelie nodded. “Then, she’s waiting until the emperor arrives,” she said, and hesitated. “Could it be that she’ll strike directly at him?”

“We have to consider all possibilities,” replied Joachim. “And that’s one, albeit a priority. Though, that would still leave our forces intact, and I can’t believe she wouldn’t try something if she has the ability.” He rubbed his eyes and groaned. “We need to get word to the emperor. Annelie, could you organize a messenger, a fast one?”

She nodded. “Morkel will do it.”

“And gather the other masters. We’ll need all the ideas anyone can come up with; however stupid they may sound, we have to consider all possibilities. We’ll be stretched thin for a while, but once the emperor and the warlocks are informed, they’ll be able to send help and look to guarding themselves. Here.” Joachim drew a coin from a pouch. It was black, as if burnt in a fire. “Bring Morkel to me. I’ll need to attune this to him.”

At Caldan and Annelie’s confused looks, he explained. “It’s a
crafting
that I’ll attune specifically to him. Any warlock will recognize it’s from me, and the messenger will be granted safe and speedy passage to the emperor’s closed council. Without it, he wouldn’t get anywhere near.”

“I’ll go find him,” said Annelie, and bustled out of the room, bodyguards following close behind.

Caldan watched her retreating back and then turned to Joachim. “Bells might not be able to use coercive sorcery if we’re on guard against it, but her destructive sorcery was more than enough to overwhelm my shield
crafting
. Her sorcery is far in advance of what we can do, and her
crafting
s were mostly a mystery to me.”

“That’s one of the things I’m afraid of,” said Joachim, a grim look on his face. “Any normal rogue sorcerer wouldn’t be a match for the Protectors, let alone us warlocks. But the Indryallans have shown their capabilities are beyond ours. How? Well, that’s a question we’ll find the answer to, I’m sure, eventually. As long as we can prevent them from doing too much damage in the meantime.”

“They’ve some way of focusing their sorcery. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t believe it’s possible, but… the flames on the walls of Anasoma… Bells’ destructive sorcery, aimed at me…”